Successful Blog

Gray Monday Mornings and Other People’s Problems

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Another Day, Another Fifty Cents

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In college my roommate and I had a routine for leaving our apartment for class. It was a silly script that we said as we locked up. It started with our version of the saying, “Another day, another dollar.”

The script was,

“Another day, Another fifty cents, maybe a dime after taxes. We’ll miss you, Mom! We’re leaving home for college.” Then we’d walk off together.

It was a reminder that life is all in how you look at it.

That script has stayed with me through inflation and returns to me whenever a plane is delayed or a unexpected problem creeps into my perfected ordered plans. I think of it, too, on gray Monday mornings when I want to write something inspiring.

These days I think, “Goodbye! I’ll miss you. I’m off to solve important problems.”

The reason the script works for me is the sense of detachment and irony that comes with word play in the sentences. I’m repositioned to think of a problem as just a problem and not a personal hardship.

When a problem is no longer my personal problem is much more interesting.

Do you find it more fun to solve other people’s problems?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

Why We Touch The Rock

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Beach Notes by Guest Writer Suzie Cheel

A Daily Habit

Each day when Des & I walk on the beach we have a habit of touching the rock at one end of the beach.

and the other.

We started this daily habit not long after we started walking on this beach 4 years ago. We noticed the resident patriarch of the morning beach walk tribe, Frank touching the rock. We learnt it was an unwritten rule, so we followed suit.

A guest staying with us last year observing this ritual asked: “What happens if you don’t touch the rock?”

Well nothing happens!

By touching the rock at both ends it is a way of ensuring that we have completed the full distance. without having to think about it.

I recently thought about how I might apply this to other areas of my life to get more completed efficiently. In other words have some kind of simple ritual to help me complete one task before moving to another. I am not sure how that fits with multitasking, but I am working on it.

“What’s your equivalent of touching the rock?

Hurry Up, Slow Down, and Take Your Time

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Up, Down, and In-Between

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On Friday at the end of a four-day week, I find myself trying to work out

What’s with time that the week seems to have gone by so fast and yet Tuesday seems so long ago?

Much as I’d like to reflect on that perception, at the moment it’s just a shiny distraction. It’s a luxury to examine the time warp of four-day work weeks. My focus belongs on things that I need to get off my mind, off my desk, off my radar screen. I’m tripping over a truth of working efficiently.

The more I want to hurry up, the more I need to slow down.

Slow has definite advantages. I find slow and focused is more productive than multitasking. Other folks find it takes stress completely out of the formula. An entire Slow Movement has grown around the concept of slowing down. Personally, I find slow only works at time that require high focus and great productivity in small spaces.

find I’m in agreement with Suzanne Stinnett, thinking that slow, as a global fix, will never work . . .

Being a slow typist doesn’t get you much these days. Technology knows nothing of slow. It is 100% about speed, and if it isn’t faster, it’s dead. Okay, maybe not 100%, because it’s also about size.

Slow whatever is a natural response to fast everything, I think. But they’re just extremes.

If hurry is up and slow is down and they’re both extreme, what’s in between?

I’m exploring the phrase, take your time.

What does take your time. mean to you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

The Real-World Social Media Heroes List

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Who Are the Real-World Social Media Heroes?

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In 2006, Time Magazine named us as “. . . an explosion of productivity and innovation, and it’s just getting started, as millions of minds that would otherwise have drowned in obscurity get backhauled into the global intellectual economy.”

This morning, listening to the cars on the wet pavement outside my window, as I consider requests for real-world causes, I’m thinking about what we’re doing with that explosion of innovation Time magazine described and the opportunity they saw within it.

This is an opportunity to build a new kind of international understanding, not politician to politician, great man to great man, but citizen to citizen, person to person. It’s a chance for people to look at a computer screen and really, genuinely wonder who’s out there looking back at them. (Time Magazine)

Oh yeah, we’re doing lots of that, but have we lost track of how few of us there are and how small our conversation really is?

Few people in the cars driving by think or care about the words flying from my computer to yours. But I care and I know that if you’re reading this, you probably care too.

It’s awfully fun to explore these innovate tools of communication, but the truth is Internet tools aren’t much if they can’t fix problems the Internet didn’t cause.

Some folks never missed that point from the start. They’re not the ones who are always quoted. You can’t measure their success in followers. They’re the ones with their feet on the ground.

Let’s celebrate the folks who are using social media tools to change lives and businesses slowly, solidly in concrete and lasting ways. They’re the ones who are changing the world.

I’ve started a list with those three: Beth Kanter, Robyn McMaster, and JP Rangaswami. Who are the real-world social media heroes you see? Who are the folks using the tools to make a difference in the world?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!

What Do You Do When the World Makes You Feel Small?

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Looking Up

I grew up with two brothers – one who is 8 years older than me and one who is 15 months older than he is. Winning at anything was a losing proposition unless they were placating me. One brother says he decided that I was his personal pet. The other brother said most days somewhat of a pest.

That’s not to say we don’t love each other to death . . . But relationships and little kids can wear on big brothers’ smiles, and I was a little kid who was particularly good wearing things out. It was a lonely “talent” and it often caused responses that made me feel smaller than the little kid I already was.

Yet as I look back, I realize that I learned a lot from my brothers who choose not to entertain the pesty, persistent interrupter that I was.

I learned to find my own measure of how big I am.

With enough practice walking off with my chin on my chest, I figured out that it’s hard to smile when I’m looking down. I also noticed that sidewalks and feet present limited possibilities to think about. We’ll not even talk about how boring I find mulling over the idea of the world is against me again.

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Looking up has much more to offer than looking down.

Just raising chin makes me feel taller and like I belong. Looking up offers new perspectives and possibilities. Even if I imagine myself tiny enough to stand under a flower I feel important enough to accomplish what I came here for.

Looking up is where the light is, where the clouds can take any form.

When things get big and I’m overwhelmed by it all, I look up. I feel power.

It’s hard to feel less than anyone else under the sky that’s bigger than everyone.

What do you do when the world makes you feel small?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
image: sxc.hu
Work with Liz!!

Jumping a Tuesday Train to a Four-Day Week

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Stop the Train! I Wanna Get On!

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In 1968, the Uniform Holidays Bill officially changed the observation of U.S. Federal Holidays to Mondays. It took effect in 1971.

Whose bright idea was that? Mondayless four-day weeks start in the middle with no chance to catch up.

That law is another brilliant accident that occurs when folks don’t think through the implications of grand ideas before they make them reality.

Transitions back to the work week are hard enough. Starting on Tuesday is like jumping a train that refuses to stop to let passengers on.

If I’d been asked, I’d have voted for Fridays, not Mondays, off. Jumping off a moving train is easier than jumping on one.

It’s a small thing for sure, but it’s a distraction to get operations back in line. The four-day holiday weeks never fully seem to be fully on track. Guess it’s good I work at home.

I’m just sayin’ . . .

What about you?

–ME “Liz” Strauss
Work with Liz!!